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56. The Fourth
🕑 Added 2024-10-10 14:26:30 +0000 UTCIn a cataclysmic preternatural storm of proportion rivaling and surpassing many of the gravest tragedies of the War in Heaven in scale and potency, a nascent God from old and new appeared. At its heart, the eye of the cyclone, was he here, a horned creature hovered down from a golden loop, his form ever-shifting, mutating as if unable to fund its calling.
One of his hands was shifting from many fingers to three and five, one among all others, floating in the pulsating memetic storm of desires, emotions, and extremes yet attached to a body that oscillates between sensual and voluptuous to one muscular and sinewy yet monstrous all the same. His form was ever-changing and never the same, yet the sign of an internal battle of dominance crystal for any able to not fall raving dementia at sight.
It was a beautiful and perfect sight in all its fundamental horror and wrongness—a contradiction by its very nature, one that bathed the infinite layers of the material and immaterial realms in impunity.
It was akin to the bright conflagration of a thousand supernovae, an unstoppable force of the universe. The darkness spread in cosmic waves from this being that should not have existed yet does. He tensed and danced in agony and ecstasy. Each movement robbed the light of stars, planets, and constellations, and even the image of distant galaxies vanished.
The darkest nights to all creation rose, snuffing the meagerest to the greatest of lights.
But one beacon remained, a guiding shadow of muffled sparks, eyes, countless eyes upon the form of the being and surrounding, morphing the world to his demented image.
Wide open eyes of hypnotic purple with ringed pupils of gold gazing at the scene of depravity happening, a debased spectacle made in his honor, but his reaction to it was not appreciation. It was a deep-seated hunger and anger wrestling one another as the being of two minds fought himself at the sight.
Alas, it was not a matter of will for the twisted God–like a ferrous substance to a magnet–the souls were irresistibly plucked from the weakest, leaving behind empty husks and absorbed by him.
The bodies void of any minds were used regardless of their states as the surrounding Aeldari watched in terror, horror, and stupor, yet in adoration as they couldn't resist the sheer desire to bask in this magnificent view, the end and ultimate gratification only one can experience for a single moment.
This… this was the epitome of what they have sought after for millions and millions of orbital revolutions, a prize that had been robbed from by traitorous and absent Gods. It was given to them, but their willingness to accept it was inconsequential as their stronger brethren soon followed the weak-willed.
Their paths were reaching their end, and the inevitably of their fates rapidly spread for the ones not lost in a sea of screams, wails, and moans, their psalms to their God. The illusion could not go on eternally, and the being at the epicenter did not push to the opposite.
The one they have birthed and corrupted, trying to rob which he regained–freedom–enraging him greatly, far more than any of their past actions. A sin that they would pay in blood. The formless being of male and female countenance fighting one another lashed out at himself, the world, and the arrogant mortals, the source of his suffering and joy.
Any restraints that may have been shattered into shards as he began to openly feast, spread agony and death to those who have offended him, taking pleasure far beyond the realm of mortals and divines alike doing so. But it was no act of a mindless beast.
There was a method, a pattern.
The fissure to the Warp thundered as it grew immensely, filling its gaping appetite with the influenceable essence of Realspace. Then the sky lit up again, replacing the distant cosmic bodies that vanished were clawed hands, his hands from which fanged maws filled with sharp-toothed tongues snapped outward the petrified Aeldari of the Empire.
Some were driven to madness, their minds utterly breaking at the mere sight, but those were blessed. For the remaining ones were to experience the true nature, the meaning of what they forced into creation, and the consequences. There was no escape, no alternate ways. Every path was blocked, every exit was closed, only the most profound and primordial nightmare… The truth was surgically installed in them, bringing crisis upon their petty existence.
All masquerade and fetishism that may have been were extinguished.
Their God laughed, roared, and sang, both feminine, masculine, and bestial. A chorus of voices, a heavenly, daunting, entrancing sound their ears were graced by. Tears of blood flowed from their vast, open eyes as their souls began to connect and emotions grew in intensity.
Divine clarity infected their existences.
Their senses were shared, and their memories followed soon after as their senses of self were erased yet never threading into oblivion for them to stop experiencing the lie of liberation that had been sought from the moment of their birth, their enlightenment. The final culmination of their pitiful and pointless lives to become simple sustenance.
There was no great revelation or grand discovery. Death was naught but an end, and now their sole purpose of existence for it was imposed on them. A punishment for some, a reward for others despite the delusion, sanity has long since become an alien concept if it was ever present in the first place.
But this same sanity was enforced onto them, and with it, the understanding of what they amounted to and what they had done was pushed to the forefront of their minds. Their pride did not, could not hold, and shattered as did many of their existential cores.
They were no superior to any sophont unlucky to fall in their clutch. They were pawns, hedonistic pests with sole quality and unnatural talent to twist and destroy, for evil was all they were and ever will be remembered. An especially unsightly stain to be disgusted and ridiculed—it was all they were, all they amounted to as a people that abided by a philosophy of unimportance, believing themselves to be Gods.
“I loathe you, I love you…” Their God, their Devil, their Dark Prince now King, spoke in two voices–the first stronger still but equalizing to the second–to their shared minds with repulsion and adoration.
The voices merged into a singular one of disregard for an insipid toy, a tone of total disinterest, “You serve no purpose, never have and never will. Accept the gift of your King. Now die.”
And they did. The void was lit up in their unworthy souls, attracted to the psychic pull of their God.
In this instant, the Aeldari Empire perished, a population numbering above and beyond that of any civilization that has been and would have been. Their communal demise rippled through the Warp, fissuring the feeble barriers between the realm further, giving the ways to all manner of horrors as the wound on reality bled, changed, festered, and now sang—forever altering the very essence of physical space.
Moments earlier, in the farthest reaches of the Labyrinthine Dimension, four figures excited a Golden Portal among the deathly silent remains of a recently populated city. But any of those historical details were of no importance to the four Aeldari Gods who appeared, free from sixty million years of isolement at long last.
It was a time of urgency; every instant wasted brought them closer to their end.
“We have escaped‐” Began the youngest head of Morai-Heg, the oldest on the opposite side followed suit, “-but it is the beginning-,” and the one between the two in both age and placements finished, “-for the path ahead is dark,“ then they spoke in unison, ”-Use my presents, the blades forged of my bones, flesh, and blood my beloved Consort. Claim what is your due prize.”
Khaine was gone before anyone could formulate any further. The Phoenix King, ready to go after his twin, suddenly froze in place as the Mistress of Fate lifted her remaining hand, but it was not her who spoke.
“You have failed, Asuryan. Do not think we have not seen your absence; you are a treacherous fiend like him but one of incompetence. Your silence and action cannot go on.” Vaul enunciated with cold, methodical fury, and the Crone's faces smiled as a strange sphere expanded in his hand.
One that wasn't incomparable to the soulless automatons’ mediocre Tesseract Labyrinths. It was more, far more than a simple dimensional prison.
“I did, brother. I have failed at my duty. You may pass your judgments as you desire.” Asuryan answered calmly, a tremor in his normally regal voice. He was trapped but not in any way that his flame couldn't free him, but power was of no use. It wasn't the answer, and alas, he did not possess it.
There was no purpose in correcting the God of Crafting statements; there was no use in the truth, and so he accepted his fate as the fuel to right what had been wronged.
Moments after, in the eye of the cyclone, the Eye of Terror.
“HOOOPPPAAAAA!”
A scream deafened all as a flaming figure equal in stature to the Dark King appeared, Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. His sword–the Widowmaker–a godslaying blade brandished firmly. Striking at his once brother-in-arms, the Aeldari God bellowed with a fury dwarfing the manifestations of that emotion himself.
“Yes, it is I. No, I'm more.” Answered the two-faced abominations, the one that was delicate, smiling in delight while its bearded opposite concentrated and shimmering with anger not incomparable to the God of Slaughter, stated matter of factly.
No further word was exchanged as the blade ripped through a defending pincer-like hand, and the moon below was vaporized from existence. The limb held no resistance in the face of such an assault; the same was true for the shoulder. The Dark King, still hissing in pain and pleasure, the next hundreds strike.
But the strategy changed, and one of the strikes was intercepted by dark chains. Locking the burning blade in place, a place desired by the Fallen God.
Then, without warning, the nascent Chaos God impaled himself in one of his hearts till the blade busted from his back in a shower of memetic blood and gore. Ungodly screeches echoed from its many mouths, resonating far and wide as its two sides were immolated in the purifying flame of conceptualized vengeance and hate.
Yet a sadistic smile of fangs under its beaked nose of his uncorrupted face held firm the act of torturing himself, plunging the serrated blade deeper. It was a suicidal act, but it was no illogical action, but for its adversary, the subtlety was lost.
“FOOL! WAS THIS YOUR SCHEME?! DIE FOR YOUR BETRAYAL ABOMINATION!” Khaine proclaimed, twisting the blade, unaware of the articulated tail coated in darkness until it stabbed his gut again and again. Lava-like blood spurted from the visor of his helmet, but his hold never weakened.
“Kill me, try, big brother.” The voices whispered commanding and tauntingly as the two were face to face, the merging having stopped midway in a broken visage from the Widowmaker in his chest.
“YOU ARE NO SIBLING OF MINE, BETRAYER! TRAITO-!” Khaine howled, but it was silenced into a gasp as a perturbingly analogous creature armored of bronze, rage, and fire grasped his neck and threw him away, folding space itself with the pressure. But the blade remained, and the Dark King viciously punched the God of Blood in the head, brutally tilting it.
“The Bloody-Handed is MINE! MINE! You hear! Begone, honorless slut!” Khorne hollered, lifting his ax and shredding the offending limbs of the not-yet Chaos God, whose screams and laughter were drowned in the beldam.
The Aeldari God glowered at the new arrival, a creature of similar disposition but twisted, a mimic, a shattered mirror. He recognized it. Khaine extended his hand, and a fiery flail grew off his palm, and with a singular motion, the chain rattled, and the molten hooks at the end latched onto the heel of the Lord of Skulls.
A new blade not unlike that of the Widowmaker but distinct by its grey hue appeared in the older God of War's hand as he whipped his flail back. Pestilence-infested roots of Nurgle deflected the divine blade.
The Grandfather of Plagues' jolly chuckles added to the parade—allowing the trapped Chaos God to avoid suffering the same fate as the one refusing to accept what is destined.
A warped warcry in a deflagration of bronze shards was Khaine's response as he ignored the insolent tumors, seeing no purpose in confronting them anymore. They were obstacles, nothing more, nothing less in the face of someone once upon a time he foolishly believed was brother.
The Dark King responded warmly and hotly, welcoming with open arms his warring sibling, or so was half of his existence. The new facet was showing genuineness for the first time. Fear. The fear of a cancerous tumor whose host remained steadfast in the threat of death.
It was ironic. But it was not to be as the last of Chaos God descended on the tumultuous scene of raw, primal psychic energy, joining to partake in the culmination of his most daring play personally—a game with many players.
“You shall not.” The Change of Ways declared, a hundred smiles opening at once as a terrific storm of caustic plasma devoured the Aeldari God, deviating his course by a scant few degrees. But it was enough for his aim, for the First of the Five Croneswords–Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrow–to fail to reach its target.
Or so it was believed. Time was shifted as a Goddess made her distant presence known, and she recalibrated the course of the past, present, and future. The Crone had acted, and the card shuffled.
The blade pierced the lower belly of the Dark King, exciting from the shoulder blade.
“Yes! No! Harder! Stop! More! Continue!” He cackled and cried, black chains from the side that was of the Archdjinni of the Rings bound the new blade like the first, fighting his false other half in a deadly tug of war.
But Death was no stranger to Hoopa, and Hoopa was no stranger to Death; he had murdered him and lived the experience. Dying would not kill him. His Master and Creation assuring him of such.
He was not to play in that little silly game made by petulant children; he would not be dragged by them to their level. The Second Cronesword–Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Scream–spearing his shoulder by his will even against the effort of his three would-be brothers if he failed proved it much more than any words.
The power of belief was potent, but it wasn't all-powerful when it was unnaturally enforced upon an anomaly created to disobey the rules themselves, flawed as it may be.
He was Hoopa, the Archdjinni of the Rings, the Beginning and the End, Darkness, and Magic, and this trap he sprung was not who it appeared to be for.
Comments
Asura
Thanks for the chapter👋
Snuckytoes
So, the Aeldari are trying to turn Hoopa into Slaanesh? That seems pretty clear by the end of the chapter but the beginning is very confusing.
